I was reading a review comparing an Omega Planet Ocean against a TAG Heuer Aquaracer and I was intrigued, these are two timepieces separated by more than price. I would be more inclined to compare the Seamaster Diver 300 against the Aquaracer although that still isn’t an equal comparison.

I was even more surprised to read the reviewer’s opinion suggesting the Aquaracer as his watch of choice. We are naturally entitled to our opinions but I tend to disagree with their review. I would own a Planet Ocean over an Aquaracer in a second given the opportunity although I do like wearing the Aquaracer. Price is always a factor, the Aquaracer is by far a less expensive watch, but prices are creeping up, the TAG Heuer boutique wants to increase prestige.

The Planet Ocean has the superior movement, the in-house automatic is co-axial with a 60 hour power reserve. The TAG Heuer uses either an ETA 2824-2, a 25 jewel or Sellita SW 200-2, a 26 jewel movement with a 38 hour power reserve. There is really not much of a comparison between the ETA or Sellita movements, the Sellita is based on the ETA 2824-2 base, just an extra jewel and the finishing generally isn’t as good. Both ETA and Sellita are solid and a proven design, the Calibre 8900 in-house is a whole new level.

I have an Aquaracer, but not a Planet Ocean. I had the chance to purchase one at a good price and I made a huge mistake as I did not like the orange bezel. I have tried on plenty of Planet Ocean over the years and loved it. The big difference is the bracelet, the pin and retainer sleeve of the TAG Heuer is cheap, there is no other comparison, the Planet Ocean has screw type retainers, a much better, and more expensive option. The pressed diver extension of the Aquaracer feels cheap, the Planet Ocean uses proper screwed links, so much better.

The Planet Ocean has a retail price of $12,500 whilst the Aquaracer is $6,500 so there is a significant price difference here. The Planet Ocean has a 45 mm case diameter whilst the Aquaracer is 42 mm, both are big, but the Planet Ocean is seriously big. The Planet Ocean has 600 metre depth rating whilst the Aquaracer is 300 metre, still pretty good. Naturally, it depends on both budget and perceived value, the Planet Ocean is the better quality but is it worth almost nearly double the price?

There are a multitude of private training providers in Australia, they deliver nationally recognised training from the government agencies of the army, navy, and air force. Then there are the large employers including Woolworths, Coles, BHP, RIO Tinto,and the fast-food retailers that of course includes McDonald’s. There are approximately 4000 private Registered Training Organisations [RTOs] in Australia, enterprise based training is what was originally envisioned, that never transpired so many RTOs opened to train workers across the nation.

So one program that caught my eye is the McDonald’s training program. Up to ten universities in Australia will grant credits to McDonald’s managers and crew coaches can cut up to a year from university courses after engaging in McDonald’s internal training courses. McDonald’s workers can also receive credits leading to micro credentials for internal training programs, this is great news. What is even better is candidates can shave up to a year off a university course and up to $20,000 in tuition fees, a significant amount. This is where on-the-job training is formally recognised, the informal training through procedures is recognised that leads to formal qualifications.

Geez, it has been a while since I was in Singapore, it has hardly changed, the city state is a financial and shipping hub and ideaĺly located in South East Asia. Clearly the richest country in South East Asia, Singapore is highly structured, highly organised and highly motivated. It was once joked that Singapore is a fine city, there is pretty much a fine for everything; however, Singapore is clean, modern and boasts an advanced economy. With high levels of education, some pretty decent universities and reliable government institutions.

Where Singapore excels is their low corruption and business ethics. Yes, there are high penalties for violation of the laws, but what I see with Singaporeans is a penchant for following the rules. You see this in the city every day with road rules, and crossing roads at traffic lights. Singapore works as a society as everyone follows the rules, this is a respectful and harmonious society. I love the organisation and how well run Singapore is, the economic miricle of South East Asia matches Japan and South Korea offering international corporations a stable economic environment to operate.

Its a hard choice to make, a Coonawarra Bin 128 or a Kalimna Bin 28 as both are fairly rocking. The big bold Bin 128 or the softer smoother Bin 28? Let’s get started with the Bin 128, the Coonawarra region is a relatively small and the terra rossa soils are famous for producing concentrated fruit. The Bin 128 is a cool climate shiraz with all the fruit sourced from the Coonawarra region, first released back in 1962, the Bin 128 a a medium bodied wine, for my tastes, a bigger bolder Coonawarra example with intense fruit flavours. 

The Bin 28 Kalimna shiraz is the smoother of the two shiraz, matured in Americal oak hogsheads for 12 months, apprently 10 new and the rest used hogsheads. Known as a warm climate shiraz, the Bin 28 was named after the Kalimna vineyard that was purchased by Penfolds in 1945 from wher the fruit was originally sourced. These days, the Bin 28 is a multi-vineyard shiraz blend, the Barossa Vally region typically provides about 45% of the sourced fruit for this wine. The Bin 28 ws also first released in 1962, so this shiraz comes with plenty of history.  

So it depends on your tastes, it always does, whilst my first choice was the bigger and bolder Coonawarra Bin 128, at this time, I am preferring the smoother Kalimna Bin 28 as my Penfolds shiraz of choice. As always, it also depends upon whom I am sharing this bottle with too, their tastes are taken into account. 

Do current dive instructor courses offer too narrow a focus? Naturally, the core skills of a dive instructor must reflect their role of dive course instruction, yet an instructor must work in a dive centre or dive resort as very few dive instructors work independently. Do professional level courses need a greater retail sales and retail management focus?

The focus of the dive centre is equipment sales, supplemented by dive trips, starting with day trips and then onto moving to dive travel. Yes, dive courses need to make money but dive courses produce the divers to purchase equipment and dive experiences. Some dive centres have been known to just break even to produce the divers to purchase equipment from their retail facilities.

Dive centres frequently offer cheap air fills just to get certified divers through the door. Alternately, the focus of the dive resort is day trips, supplemented by dive courses and some minor equipment sales. Regardless, the dive instructor must on-sell dive courses, dive equipment and dive experiences or there is no business – there had better be retail training otherwise customers walk straight out the door and to your competitors.

I knew the song all the way back from 1985 as a sixteen year old, but I did not listen to it with the same purpose as I do now. So in 2026 when I listen to this protest song, its message isn’t lost on me. The message has actually strengthened, not softened. Yes, Paul Weller was ahead of his time, fourty odd years later, the words are even more poignant. Co-founder Mick Talbot of Dexy’s Midnight Runners fame, and later The Bureau is on keyboards.

The music video for The Style Council’s Walls Come Tumbling Down was filmed in Warsaw, Poland, specifically at the Akwarium jazz club. The band recorded the video there on March 11, 1985. With YouTube, I can actually watch the video at my leisure now. I never had the video on demand as a young punk, so I could never view on demand. Now, I can study the video [and the song] and relate the film clip to Warsaw in the mid 80s. Whilst the jazz club is long gone, the rest of the architecture is pretty similar to my brief time in Warsaw in 2018.

The beautiful DC Lee singing harmonies on the track is what makes it stand out for me. Whilst her dance moves are pretty bad, when a girl looked as good as her back then, the dancing is not what you look at. The mood in the club was subdued, I expect the crowd had no idea who The Style Council was, just some strange UK band that floated in. My guess is they did not know who Paul Weller was, just some young skinny punk with a dodgy haircut. The scenes outside the club around Warsaw are very interesting, the trams still operate and The Palace of Culture and Science dominates the skyline, a Stalin era building.

Donald Trump is a president who never seems to be out of the headlines, normally for all the wrong reasons. Trump has diminished the US presidency, this will take multiple terms of new presidents to return the prestige of the US President to world leadership status. Donald Trump in his wisdom has halted the annual military exercises with only half the exercise complete.

For his latest fiasco, Trump has infuriated longtime friend of the United States, South Korea. There are numerous US bases in South Korea, this is an important strategic partner in Asia. Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, close to Seoul is the South Korean headquarters. This is designated the United States Forces Korea [USFK] and largest overseas US base with over 41,000 personnel on site. Camp Humphreys hosts Desiderio Army Airfield [K-6]; a busy airfield hosting the 2nd Infantry Division’s Combat Aviation Brigade.

There is the Osan Air Base, the primary base for the 7th Air Force south west of Seoul with F-16 Fighting Falcons of the 51st Fighter Wing and A-10 Thunderbolt attack aircraft affectionately known as the Warthog. The Osan Air Base also hosts There is also the Kunsan Air Base, further south of the Osan Air Base on the coast hosting the 8th Fighter Wing with F-16 Fighting Falcons. There are also air support operations at the base, so this is a serious installation in South Korea. Then there is Camp Walker and Camp Henry in the south east region providing logistical support.

Trump called the military exercises “inappropriate and hostile” towards North Korea. This is, of course, the same North Korea that is sending weapons and troops to aid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Donald Trump believes he has a special relationship with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un whom Trump will meet with again later this year. Trump has some affection for dictators, his special relationship with Vladimir Putin allows him to be played like a puppet on the world stage. Trump even stated that as South Korea refused to assist the US in its attack on Iran, it is not a true ally of the US. This is another strategic blunder by Trump, not deterred by his failure in Iran, he believes countries such as South Korea should commit themselves to pulling the US out of the quagmire that Trump himself created.

I was checking my social media on a Saturday morning when a Euromaidan News flashed up, the video was of a Ukrainian Mig-29 fighter taking out a Russian Shahed drone without firing a shot. This was a risky move that created the turbulence to disrupt the flight of the drone causing the drone to spiral out of control and crash in a field. It was a high-risk maneuver, but ultimately a successful move that brought the drone down.

In what could be argued was a second world war tactic, Flight Officer Kenneth Collier of No. 91 Squadron RAF was the pilot who used his wingtip after exhausting his ammunition in his Spitfire, successfully tipping a V-1 into a nosedive in June 1944. Collier was on patrol and intercepted the V-1 crossing the coast into England. He raised the speed of his Mark-14 Spitfire to the speed of the V-1 rocket to destabalise the gyroscopic mechanism in the V-1 rocket, sending the rocket crashing toward the ground.

This is a difficult position for the federal government, we have the Islamic women who voluntarily left Australia to move to the calipate in Syria when ISIS was in control of the region. If these women are so fundamentally hard-line that they would willingly move to a war zone to live the ISIS life, then they have no business returning to Australia when the ISIS caliphate collapses.

However, this is where the situation becomes difficult, if they are Australian citizens then Australia has an obligation to return them. Naturally, these women are a security risk to the nation, they have been radicalised. So the government has an issue, they hold a fundamental obligation to Australian citizens, even ones who engage in terrorism or terrorist ideals. What we as a nation are not allowed to do is leave a person stateless, this is an international agreement between nations. This is controlled by the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, therefore, governments cannot revoke a person’s nationality if doing so leaves them without a country.

So after years of stalling, the women are being returned from Syrian refugee camps to Australia. What a performance this is, the return of the women through Melbourne airport flanked by supporters is almost obscene. The behaviour of the ISIS brides reflects not only poorly on the supporters, but the Islamic community in general. This is the same group of people marching in the streets for the anti-Israel protests. This pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel cohort group openly support designated terrorism groups. With foreign interference occurring in Australia funded by terrorism groups, this is a national security concern.

So what is the Ukrainian leadership trying to do? We know they are targeting the Russian version of Amazon, there have been warehouses burning across the country, we have seen the smoke billowing into the air. This is something Putin and his Kremlin cronies cannot hide from the Russian population in Moscow and St Petersburg, the drone attacks are very visual, the Kremlin is in a degree of crisis now, this is evident.

The business concept is interesting, Tatyama Kim started the business in her apartment whilst on maternity leave in 2004. She was unable to buy clothes for herself when staying at home looking after her newborn. So, with her IT technician husband, they built the platform for the Russian eCommerce site. This was the largest taxpayer in Russia in 2022 prior to international sanctions, there is also the warehouse capacity loss that will affect that apparently the Russian military utilised.

The argument is Wildberries is supplying military gear to Russian soldiers on the frontline, there is probably some truth in that. There is body armour, tactical clothing, navigational equipment and drones being moved on this site. But the real reason is the Russian entrepreneurs who are being bankrupted, this is bringing the war home to ordinary Russians who have their entire business inventories tied up in Wildberries warehouses, they take the entire liability on here. Wildberry had a recent clause written into contracts where they would not be liable for force majeure that included drone strikes.

There is some discussion that Wildberries is the most indebted company in Russia, if the Ukrainians bring down this company they will bring down the Russian banks financing this company to create a domino effect in Russia. VTB Bank and Sberbank are most exposed with an estimated $10 billion to $14 billion debt. There are reports that Russians are withdrawing their funds from banks across Russia over fears the government will seize their money to fund the Ukraine war.

An estimated 80 to 100 million Russians are affected with $57 billion of goods traded on the platform, about 3% of Russian GDP. We are looking at mass bankruptcies in Russia with between 500,000 to 800,000 small and mid-sized sellers operating through the Wildberries platform. These entrepreneurs have had their entire inventories wiped out, this will have a knock on effect from the gig economy from drivers to warehouse staff, everyone is hurting now.